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History Has A Heartbeat As War, Holocaust Relived

World War II history came alive last week at Glen Crest Junior High School in Glen Ellyn when 320 8th graders experienced firsthand what conflict is like.

Usually schools teach children about history through books, but Glen Crest wanted to find a different way to make an impact upon pupils in the wake of this year's 50th anniversary commemoration of the Allied victory in Europe over Nazi Germany.

"The purpose is to present some facts about World War II in a different vein other than through textbooks and teacher lectures," said Brian Stiles, a Glen Crest teacher.

The Glen Ellyn school invited a Holocaust survivor and two "soldiers" to tell from their perspectives how it really was during World War II.

The Military History Education Association, a Grayslake non-profit group, puts on performances in which members portray American and German soldiers, composites of actual people who fought in the war.

Joseph Mazzeralla and Rocco Spencer appeared in full battle dress with rifles and wearing tree branches for camouflage as American and German soldiers facing combat on the morning of the Normandy invasion in June 1944.

A corporal instructing his squad of four paratroopers, Mazzeralla outlined the mission to secure a bridge three miles away outside a French town in two hours before German forces could cross. "We've got to get to that bridge before they counterattack," he said.

Then Spencer, a sergeant, told his soldiers, "We must hold this place to keep Allied beachheads from being able to connect."

Though the two soldiers never fully play out the scenario, they discussed vividly what war and killing is like. When an 8th grader asked them whether they expect to die, Spencer said, "Hopefully, it will be by a sniper. One minute I am up and the next minute I am down." Mazzeralla said, "You pray that you will be one of the ones that get on a ship on a cruise back home."

Kevin Seward, narrator of the scene, said the German soldier will die in combat and the American will be wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, be hospitalized in a Veterans Administration facility until 1947, become a Chicago businessman and die in 1985.

Lisa Derman, a Northbrook resident who survived the Holocaust, appeared after the soldiers' scenario. "It's hard to imagine I was your age when tragedy befell me," she told the 8th graders.

In 1941, at age 13, Derman was herded into a ghetto in Slonim, Poland, along with more than 20,000 people of Jewish descent, packed into an area with a previous population of 2,000. "Hunger and disease took over and people began to die," she said.

On Nov. 14, 1941, Nazi soldiers took 10,000 people from the ghetto and massacred them, including Derman's mother. She and a sister escaped. Later, the Germans set fire to the ghetto and her sister died.

"Most of the people burned to death," she said. "At no time did fire engines come. At no time did ambulances come."

Derman said, "I survived by hiding and running again and again. I never gave up."

Mesmerized Glen Crest pupils applauded her so vigorously and so long they finally had to be stopped by a teacher.

"She made it so realistic," said Jennifer Malloy, an 8th grader. "I would have been scared to death."

Brandy Bly, a classmate, said, "I don't think I would have been able to survive the Holocaust."

As for the presentation by the "soldiers," Paul Dvorak, also an 8th grader, said, "I learned what being a soldier was like. It's not like TV where it's fake. This was true."

Foundation grant: Karen Schiff, Spanish teacher at Hinsdale Central High School, is the first winner of the Jodie Harrison Memorial Teacher's Grant from the school's foundation.

Schiff will travel to Ecuador this summer to film eight videos of life in that country to use for the 165 third-year Spanish students. Each segment will focus on vocabulary and grammar.